Alleged Infiltrator Details Antifa's Internal Dynamics, Contrasting Academic Understanding of Decentralized Movement

A social media post by Danny Wolf, an individual claiming to have infiltrated Antifa for six months between 2017 and 2018, has offered a highly critical and detailed account of the anti-fascist movement's internal structure and ideology. Wolf's claims paint a picture of a movement driven by a desire to "overthrow the government" and operating with a complex, unspoken hierarchy, contrasting with widely accepted academic analyses that describe Antifa as largely decentralized.

According to Wolf's account, his infiltration was aimed at "subvert[ing] and sabotag[ing], but also to understand my enemy." He described the modern American Antifa as a "shaky alliance between leftwing anarchists and communists," symbolized by their black and red colors, whose "primary mission" is "seizing power, plain and simple," rather than policy reform. He further asserted that the average antifascist's understanding of Marxism and left-wing philosophy was laughably flawed.

Wolf's observations included a specific, though unspoken, internal hierarchy: "Black militants would always be in a public-facing leadership position... The organizers were almost always White women and gays. The trans element was usually relegated to being mere foot soldiers, and any straight White guys pretending to be allies... were at the very bottom." He characterized the experience of a White man in these groups as being "tolerated" only if useful, expected to "nod along, smile like a jackass and clap the loudest" to avoid tension.

He further claimed that a "victim hierarchy of women, LGBTs, blacks, latinos, muslims, jews, etc. rules every thought they have," leading to an "oppressor-oppressed dynamic" through which they perceive the world. This worldview, he stated, extends to a desire to "redeem" and "rename" anything associated with "evil White men" through "decolonization."

However, academic and expert analyses from the period 2017-2018 generally describe Antifa as a highly decentralized, non-hierarchical movement. Sources like Wikipedia, citing historians Mark Bray and analyses from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), indicate that Antifa consists of autonomous groups with no unified leadership or chain of command. The movement is broadly characterized by anti-authoritarian, anti-capitalist, and anti-state views, with individuals subscribing to various left-wing ideologies including anarchism, communism, and socialism. The FBI Director Christopher Wray has also stated that Antifa is more of an "ideology" than an "organization." While Antifa's aim is to combat far-right extremism, including neo-Nazis and white supremacists, the specific, rigid hierarchy described by Wolf is not typically corroborated in broader scholarly assessments of the movement's structure.